Cause Of Death
by BambiRosie
Summary: 'Drug overdose' the doctors had said as they filed out of the apartment, his body on a stretcher. But she knew he hadn't died because the drugs. They had just been a means to an end. This wasn't the first time, the doctor had said, that someone had been driven mad by the sufferings of heartbreak.


'She was only young' They had always said. It was cruel that she had to get mixed up in Chuck and Blair's story. It wasn't fair, and the scars from it still left her open and bleeding to this day.

It was 2 years ago that Jenny had walked into the bathroom of the Empire Hotel to find Chuck. His face white, lips blue, hunched over in a chair, his head tilted to the side so that his jaw line stuck out in a wonderfully and almost hauntingly beautiful way.

The white blue light had cast a dull feeling of white noise over the space. Trapping her in limbo for half a second before she finally removed herself, crying hysterically and calling for Nate.

'Drug overdose' the doctors had said as they filed out of the apartment, his body on a stretcher. But she knew he hadn't died because the drugs. They had just been a means to an end. This wasn't the first time, the doctor had said, that someone had been driven mad by the sufferings of heartbreak.

They had all said it had to be expected. There was nothing they could do, what would come, would come. And so it did.

He had always been so mean, strong, and proud. She would never forget the way she found him. The tracks of tears still fresh on his face, and such a look of peacefulness that he may have been sleeping.

Jenny still believed she had been one of the closest to ever understand him. It scared her sometimes, when she would walk into his room. The empty bottles, dull smell of scotch and also the slight odor of cigarettes perfuming the space like a hot shower room.

A thick layer of sorrow covered him wherever he went. Only certain people could really see it, but everyone he met could see the toll she had on him. Even from the dead.

His eyes had the look of someone who had been sick for far too long to remember, and his face no longer was colourful or alive.

She had always found him so devastatingly handsome, and the effect that the sufferings of love had on him certainly wore well. His cheekbones had caved inwards like cliffs toppling from the coast side, and the skin draping his jaw had sunken away, leaving it looking as if he had been carved by wood. His eyes had become grey and unreadable, nobody could see into them anymore without seeing their own reflection staring right back.

She could still remember when she used to look at him and see two pairs of the exact shade of brown eyes staring back at her.

Together, they were invincible.

But now one of them had self combusted, it was not long until the other would follow.

He had stuck it out long enough. It had been her wishes. She had told him that no matter what happened to her, she wanted him to stay there. For them.

It had been exactly four months until the pain had become unbearable. He thought it would get better, they all said it would. They were proud of him. Lily had said that she knew it would be tough, but he would make it through this.

He had cried for them as he stood in that bathroom, swallowing convulsively and sinking into the chair below him. He was sorry. They had given so much and he had offered so little in return. But most of all he had cried for her. For them. When happiness had been just within their reach it had been snatched from them like a ball from a player, leaving them tired, weak, and devastated behind.

Jenny still remembered the day that the doctor had delivered the news. He had taken Chuck into a room off the hall, closing the door behind them as Jenny strained her ears to hear what was going on. The feeling in the hospital had been one of gathered tension. The people were holding on for the sake of their own dignity, and the smell of fear polluted the wide, endless corridors.

A minute later with a bang, he had left the room, ignoring their worried faces and strode down the hallway in the way that he always did. She could see the tears blurring his vision and the hopelessness that seemed to make him sag before her eyes.

'There's nothing we can do, I'm sorry, just make sure she's comfortable.'

He wouldn't go to visit her for days. It had taken Nate and Serena telling him that she visibly had only a few days left that had made him leave his room.

They had been surprised when they didn't see the scattering of alcohol and drugs in his wake as he left the apartment without a word to them and went straight to her. Nate had always said that when he was really in pain not even that could dull it, so he wouldn't even bother.

Jenny had watched him kneel down beside the brown haired girl as she cried behind the blinded window of the hospital room, wiping the tears off her face, and whispering words of comfort in her ear. She could see the brave face he was attempting to put on, but whenever he left the room for brief periods of time within the next 36 hours she saw the soft smile fade from his lips, as it was replaced with a look of such agony she didn't think anyone should have to suffer, not even her worst enemy.

One day and twelve hours later she had fallen into a coma. Nobody else could bare to stay except him. They couldn't stand knowing what was to come and being able to do nothing about it. He had stayed there holding her hand until the very end. He didn't cry or sob, but if one was to look at him they could see a man who had just had his heart wrenched out of him, leaving only the outer shell of who he once was.

The day after she had been pronounced dead he had tried to sell Bass Industries on the stock market for ten dollars. 'I have nothing left. I want nothing.' he had uttered the words to Nate when he had gone to see him.

Lily had put a stop to it. Taking over the board for the meantime. Telling them that Mr Bass wouldn't be returning to his position.

The deep red leather seat no longer belonged to a Bass and it never would again. Lily had known it, they all had deep down. The dark wooden desk and shelves filled with books that had never been read would sit there for the next few years as nobody would enter that office without being met by the atmosphere of stale bitterness that had only grown stronger with age.

She had told him they would get married. She had told him that to his face whilst she lay in that bed dying. And Jenny hated her a bit for that. She had watched him for months as he struggled to regain his composure for merely a minute. But it never happened. His face remained the cold, masked demean that so many knew him by but only few could see past.

After she went, nobody could see past it anymore. They had been waiting for the day that he would undoubtedly get tired of fighting, for trying to be happy when every soul knew he never could be again.

It had taken her a long time to recover from when she had found him in that bathroom. To forget the music she had heard playing in her head and the smell of bleach mingled with death that poisoned her brain, leaving her with a headache that could have lasted days. She didn't know.

She had fled after that. Leaving the city, the Empire, which whenever she saw she felt like she was looking at a cross on the side of the highway, surrounded by flowers and photos. But Chuck had died a long time before he had killed himself in that bathroom with drugs two years ago.

Sometimes she thought about it. She hoped they were happy somewhere. Jenny had fallen in love with the way that man had loved that girl, and despite the pain, and the sorrow that had ensued, if she was to find love like that she wouldn't give it up for anything.

Nobody would.


End file.
